AXTA( U )\ rSTIC l'H( )PERTIES 



223 



Soil s.'iinplcs ;iii(l (■;iit hwoniis were du}^ 

 Iroin the }>;i-n\('s, hut the cullurcs ohtaiiicd 

 "\\(M'(> disappoint iiifily dcxoid of intorcsling 

 antaiioiiists." Soil samples wei'c ulso taken 

 aloiif^ the i-()ut(' of a scwa^o effluent fi-oui a 

 saiiatoi'iiun foi' tuberculous patients. "Sam- 

 ples of tlie soil taken alon*;' this chamiel of 

 cently hui'led. lie can do no better than to ti'eatment from the faw se\vaj;-e to a point .")() 



to isolate cultures of act inomycetes that 

 mijiilu poss(>ss specific actixity against the 

 orjianisms adde(l to tlie soil. 



'I'he writer I'eceixcd numei'ous su.nj^est ions 

 that lie use soils from cemetei'ies in which 

 sufforors from tuberculosis and other in- 

 fectious diseases or cancer \ictims were re- 



quote from Routi(Mi and Finlay, who fol- 

 lowed up such suiiii'est ions. 'I'hey attempted 

 on two occasit)ns to ist)late antagonistic or- 

 ganisms from such sources. Soil from an 

 orthodox Jewish cemetery, wh(M'e bo(h(\s wei'c 

 interred soon after death without (Mubalming, 

 Avas examined foi' antagonists against the 



yai'ds downiiill yielded no organism of high 

 antagonistic powers." 



Cross-resistance of Microorganisms as 

 Diagnostic Criteria 



Waksman, Reilly, and Johnstone (1946) 

 first demonstrated that act inomycetes are, 



diseased body 



Table 60 



Cross-resistance of anlibiotic-produriny 

 aciinomycetes (Teillon) 



pathogens introduced into tiie soil with the as a rule, resistant to theantibiotics produced 



by them (Table 58). However, some or- 

 ganisms tended to be less sensitive to certain 

 antibiotics than to others. These investi- 

 gators suggested taking advantage of this 

 phenomenon for the isolation from the soil 

 of specific organisms producing a particular 

 antibiotic, and for isolation of more potent 

 antibiotic-producing strains from a mixed 

 mother culture. It was later shown (Waks- 

 man and Lechevalier) that certain organisms, 

 like S. fradiae, are sensitive to their own 

 antibiotics. Krassilnikov accepted the phe- 

 nomenon of cross-resistance within the 

 species of actinomycetes as offering a de- 



* A = S. rimosus; B = S. griseus; C 

 ofaciens, D = <S. fradiae. 



S. aure- 



Table 61 

 Cross-streak tests with 12 strains of S. fradiae on yeast-glucose agar (Waksman et al., 1958) 



